Not sure I’d ever sat through a school board meeting, but I am sure I’ve never spent 3 hours at one!
Monday night, remotely I attended a very informative Emporia Board of Education study session. It was impressive. The information presented by two groups, one from the state and the other appointed by the local board explained this new feature called “Kansas Schools Gating Criteria” which is available to help school districts evaluate the climate for opening their schools in relation to Covid 19.
We learned how this Gating tool works and what information is used to create it. The two areas that seem to trouble Lyon County most are: the number of new Covid cases and the percent of positive cases compared to total tests given.
The committee members from outside Emporia were lavish in their praise of the reopening plans USD 253 has put together. In fact, more than one of the experts called Emporia’s plan the most detailed and well thought out plan they had seen. This will be important when the Board decides how proceed on Wednesday night.
The bad news is our “community burden” meaning our performance against the virus has not been very good. Bad efforts in the two areas mentioned earlier seem to put USD 253 in the mostly Orange area on the Gating chart. The addition of a large number of tests from ESU actually helped, but Lyon County’s consistent daily growth in new virus cases is a deal breaker.
The discussion was engrossing. Our position on the Gating chart suggestd “Remote Only” for learning and limits activities including sports in a significant way..
The experts did agree that because of the really good plan Emporia has created it could consider going forward with current plans for face to face elementary school education and the phased in – hybrid plan for older kids.
Sports and other activities are a different question and one that received a great deal of attention. No one discounted the need or desire for extra curricular activities, but the risk involved was well documented.
Board President Mike Crouch is an impassioned proponent for allowing activities to go forward until there is a problem citing the past three weeks where camps and practices have been held without incident. Mike asked “so, what’s changed, why back off now?”
Unfortunately for Mike and many others it isn’t what’s changed as much as what hasn’t changed. That being the growing daily number of new cases of Covid 19 in Lyon County. That’s the problem! We as a community have not done a good enough job in fighting this pandemic and our children may pay for it! We need to do better.
Thank you to the USD 253 Board members and those assisting them with this decision and good luck with this difficult decision.
I’m Steve Sauder.
